The most common method of whitening a beverage such as coffee or tea is to add cream or milk. Coffee shops that dispense large volumes of cream or milk may use dispensing equipment that contains large fluid volumes. One example of such dispensing equipment is described in applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/830,033 published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0236429 A1, the entirety of which is herein incorporated by reference. Control of dispensing volume may be an available feature of the dispensing equipment, having the advantage of rendering a consistent product when a customer orders, for example, a whitened beverage with “double cream”. A coffee shop using dispensing equipment will periodically need to replace the bags of cream or milk contained therein. Bag replacement frequency may be, for example, every 3 or 4 hours. This replacement frequency increases during the busiest times of the day, which can create delays in customer service.
Cream dispensed to whiten a beverage such as coffee typically contains 10% or 18% butter fat (b.f.). It is not optimal to consumer acceptance to simply substitute 20% or 35% b.f. cream, respectively, at half of the normally dispensed volume, because although the b.f. content is increased, the whitening effect attributable to non-fat milk solids is not achieved. A beverage so whitened is not as acceptable to the customer, and can clearly be distinguished from the 10% or 18% cream to which a customer may have grown accustomed.
Steamed milk is used for whitening in the preparation of specialty coffee drinks, such as cappuccinos and lattes. Further, tea-based beverages, such as Chai tea lattes or “milk tea” may be made with flavored or unflavored white, black, and green teas, or may be made with herbal teas, sometimes referred to as “tisane”. Chocolate-based drinks, such as hot cocoa, fall within the category of steamed milk beverages. Such drinks can be prepared by heating the milk with steam, instead of direct heat or microwaves, because of the reduced likelihood of burning or scalding the milk.
Creating steamed milk requires the introduction of steam to the milk until a desired temperature is met, and/or until a desired amount of foam is created. Typically, refrigerator temperature (4-6° C.) milk is heated to about 140-160° C. The resulting steamed milk has a heated fluid portion and a foam portion, the ratio of which is controlled by such variables as the amount of air introduced by the steam wand. Steam contains water vapor, and thus introduces water into milk. At higher pressures, such as can be achieved with large commercial equipment, a low water volume is introduced during the steaming process. This only minimally increases fluid volume, for example from 2 to 10%. Smaller equipment, such as machines intended for home use, introduce steam into the milk with less pressure. Thus more steaming time is required to achieve the desired heating of the milk, and fluid volume may be increased to a greater extent, For example, a fluid increase of from 5 to 40% may occur to increase the temperature from 4-6° C. to about 140-160° C.
The greater the volume of water introduced into the milk in the steaming process, the more dilute the heated milk becomes. Such dilution decreases the whitening ability of the heated milk, and reduces the taste contribution of the milk to the final drink. A steaming process that introduces water and thereby increases the fluid milk volume by 2 to 40%, will have a decrease in whitening ability that is commensurate with the dilution from steaming.
It is estimated that the fluid volume of the original milk (excluding foam) can increase from 2% to 40%, depending on the steaming process parameters, such as the equipment, and the starting and ending temperatures. The dilution of milk due to the steaming process is undesirable to the consumer, and reduces the whitening ability of the milk in the resulting hot beverage, which may be a coffee, tea or chocolate-based beverage.
Beverage whitening products other than cream or milk are available, but rarely provide the same taste and organoleptic properties as cream or milk. Customers in a coffee shop who have become used to cream or milk would not find such substitutes acceptable. Condensed milk offers a highly viscous consistency, and is not easily dispensed or dispersed into a beverage. Powdered whitener formulations are not dispensable in a liquid form, and also require additional agitation to disperse properly into a beverage.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,887,505 (Reaves et al.) teaches a milk concentrate formed through ultra-high temperature pasteurization (UHT), intended for reconstitution into a milk beverage. The concentrate is formed by evaporating liquid from a fresh milk product, which requires labor-intensive processing. In general, conventional concentrated or condensed milk products are formed in this way, by a processing-intensive step involving removal of water. Prior to reconstitution, such concentrates would not be an acceptable addition to beverages such as coffee or tea.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,627,243 (Cherian et al.) describes a cream substitute containing butter, a thickening agent, and a food protein. The cream substitute is intended for cooked or baked food products normally requiring cream, such as sauces, soups or cream-filled pastries, and requires starch or gum as a thickening agent. European Patent EP 0 714 609 B1 describes whipping cream compositions with low fat content that are suitable for preparing whipped or frozen desserts. U.S. Pat. No. 6,248,389 (Biller et al.) describes a cream substitute for addition to food recipes that require cream. The substitute is provided in a non-liquid form, such as a cube, powder, or a semi-solid (extrudable) product. Such products as these are not appropriate as whiteners for beverages.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,045,589 (Petrowski et al.) provides a non-dairy fat emulsion suitable for whitening coffee. The emulsion includes a variety of non-milk solids that would impact the taste of coffee when compared with cream. U.S. Pat. No. 6,824,810 (Sargent et al.) describes a creamer composition that may be in either liquid or powdered form containing non-dairy ingredients that are microparticulated to specified dimensions so as to prevent aggregation of particles.
Others have attempted to provide concentrated coffee products to which water can be added. U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,830 and No. 6,548,101 (both to Cevallos et al.) describe a whitened coffee concentrate that includes milk solids as well as coffee solids, which can be constituted to an appropriate strength for consumption. Patent GB 1415844 describes a whitened coffee concentrate, including a coffee extract, to which water may be added to reconstitute a coffee beverage.
There is a need for a beverage whitening composition capable of achieving taste, whitening, and organoleptic properties similar to cream or milk when added to a beverage, when delivered to the beverage in a reduced volume.